A fraternity brother shared this on his FB page:
A very articulate, emotional and thought provoking stance on the chic-fil-a issue from a former student of mine...very proud of him and Peter!
[Fraternity Brother] --
I love you like a brother, and I’m really truly happy that as an owner-operator of a Chick-fil-A franchise, you enjoyed amazingly stellar sales yesterday due to circumstances that had nothing to do with what I’m sure is quality food and service that your business provides your community. But as a gay man who is in a loving, supportive, fulfilling relationship with my partner of 13 years who I met at the fraternity that you personally convinced me to join, I am obviously and very painfully conflicted. Unfortunately, your success today was due to the outpouring of support in your local community for the opposition to same-sex marriage. My inability to marry my loved one is a denial of a basic civil right that you and all opposite-gender couples enjoy.
According to the Chick-fil-A website, the Chick-fil-A culture and service tradition in its restaurants is to treat every person with honor, dignity and respect – regardless of their belief, race, creed, sexual orientation or gender. Despite this noble viewpoint, Chick-fil-A’s CEO Truett Cathy has been very vocal about his commitment to supporting groups that oppose marriage equality.
Chick-fil-A’s very noble public equality statement obviously does not take account of how destructive it is to American society for gays and lesbians to be regarded as second-class citizens by denying them the basic right to marry. This “basic” right is not as basic as it seems though, because the definition of marriage in federal law includes provisions for well over 1,400 rights and privileges that are difficult, if not impossible, and prohibitively costly to engineer and or contract for outside of a basic marriage license.
While you may feel that your value system and religious beliefs are in line with the “blocks long” swarms of customers that have demonstrated their support for Chick-fil-A’s opposition to same-sex marriage, and while you may feel that you and your beautiful family are far removed from the struggle for marriage equality because you have traditional Christian beliefs and a “traditional” family structure yourself, I don’t think you realize how involved in the struggle for same-sex marriage you and [Fraternity Brother's Wife] actually are.
When I rushed our fraternity on a cold September evening back in 1996, I met you and a handful of other mutual friends of ours that night at the chapter house, and I was hooked. There was nothing particularly amazing, special, unique, or outstanding about the fraternity house or any of the guys that I met.
But I never would have stuck around the fraternity after that first night if I hadn’t met you and [Fraternity Brother #2] and [Fraternity Brother #3]. I never would have had the two years of bonding with you that I got to enjoy serving together on the executive committee and doing our best to promote and grow our chapter together. I never would have gone on to continue being actively involved after you eventually graduated and moved on if I had not had such a worthwhile time bonding with you and the 100+ brothers that came along after you during my four years of active membership. And I never would have met my Peter at the beginning of my fourth year had I not been there in the first place because of special friends like you.
I DID NOT realize I was gay prior to having met you at the age of 18. It did not occur to me until I was 21 and met my Peter. I just realized that it is what I always had been. It was not easy for me to come to terms with, mostly because I had to spend a few years coming to terms with it and waiting for my friends and family and loved ones to come to terms with it, all over different periods of time. Most of the fraternity brothers that I still keep in touch with have basically found out via Facebook if they cared to look at my profile, and the ones I have chatted with about it have been supportive as far as I can tell.
I certainly did not choose to be gay. It can’t possibly be a choice. Why would anyone choose to be regarded as a second-class citizen and have to plan travel itineraries around gay-friendly versus gay-hostile cities and towns? Why would anyone choose to disappoint family members who most likely expected children from me by my mid-20s and are still waiting and will have to keep waiting until I can muster the funds to either adopt or conceive through egg donors and surrogacy?
I don’t know how you and [Fraternity Brother's Wife] feel about me being gay, but your opinions, which you have every right to, are not any more relevant to me than my opinion on where you should vacation this year should be to you. We all live our separate lives, and most of the time, we can celebrate each others’ lives together either passively or actively or not at all using social media like Facebook and Twitter during the long stretches of time that we go between actually visiting each other in person. It is rare that our personal views on a topic can actually have far-reaching and destructive effects on others.
I sincerely hope that I never ever have a chance to benefit financially from your misfortune. More specifically, I hope I never have an opportunity to celebrate a banner day for my own small business while at the same time supporting or expressing appreciation for or agreement with any cause that restricts, revokes, withholds, or otherwise undermines any of the civil rights that you or your loved ones enjoy or hope to enjoy in the future.
What exactly is gay marriage or same-sex marriage? What is marriage itself? Marriage establishes a legal kinship between a person and his or her spouse. It is a relationship that is recognized across cultures, countries and religions. Civil unions and domestic partnerships address only some of the legal rights inherent with marriage, and these legal designations are only recognized within the borders of the state that granted them. Only marriage itself is recognized across state lines, by the federal government, and even across national borders.
You may not realize it, but there are more than 1,400 legal rights that are automatically conferred upon heterosexual married couples by virtue of a simple marriage license in the United States. By not being allowed to marry, gays and lesbians are denied these rights. Even in the state of Massachusetts, one of a handful of U.S. states with legalized gay marriage, most of the benefits of marriage do not apply, because the Defense of Marriage Act states that the federal government only recognizes marriage as "a legal union of one man and one woman as husband and wife".
Here are some of the legal rights that married couples have and gays and lesbians are denied:
1. Joint parental rights of children
2. Joint adoption
3. Status as "next-of-kin" for hospital visits and medical decisions
4. Right to make a decision about the disposal of loved ones remains
5. Immigration and residency for partners from other countries
6. Crime victims recovery benefits
7. Domestic violence protection orders
8. Judicial protections and immunity
9. Automatic inheritance in the absence of a will
10. Public safety officers death benefits
11. Spousal veterans benefits
12. Social Security
13. Medicare
14. Joint filing of tax returns
15. Wrongful death benefits for surviving partner and children
16. Bereavement or sick leave to care for partner or children
17. Child support
18. Joint Insurance Plans
19. Tax credits including: Child tax credit, Hope and lifetime learning credits
20. Deferred Compensation for pension and IRAs
21. Estate and gift tax benefits
22. Welfare and public assistance
23. Joint housing for elderly
24. Credit protection
25. Medical care for survivors and dependents of certain veterans
These are just a few of the 1,400 state and federal benefits that gays and lesbians are denied by not being able to marry. Most of these benefits cannot be privately arranged or contracted for within the legal system, and those that can be privately arranged or contracted for will cost me a hell of lot more than the $60 it costs to get a marriage license here in Clark County, Nevada. Much like an extremely complicated general partnership in business or even a standard franchise agreement with Chick-fil-A, it would undoubtedly cost me thousands of dollars in attorney consultations to have any of these benefits privately arranged or contracted for.
For a more exhaustive list of areas of federal law that apply unequally between married couples and couples who cannot legally marry, please reference a pretty comprehensive 1997 letter from the General Accounting Office to the Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee discussing the matter which you can find at
http://www.gao.gov/archive/1997/og97016.pdf.
There are six predominant arguments AGAINST gay marriage that I’m sure you are keeping one or more of fresh in your mind as a retort as you are reading this letter. Here’s what they are and also why they fail:
Gay marriage violates tradition.
Yes, most cultures have defined marriage as the union of one man and one woman for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. But tradition is a mixed bag. It includes slavery and grotesque exploitation of workers. It also includes the denial of rights to women and the execution of those who committed thought and property crimes. Traditionally, we have cast aside the disabled and righteously persecuted those with differing religious views. Integrating a society and expanding human rights has always shattered tradition, and we have consistently been better off for it. Many of the same biblical arguments used to oppose same-sex marriage were also used in earlier modern history to deny interracial marriage.
Gay couples can't produce children.
Marriage provides a legal framework that strengthens that union for the benefit of all. But that's not all marriage is, by any means, which is why the law generally allows prisoners to marry even when they're likely never to be released, has no bar against elderly couples getting married, imposes no fertility requirements on prospective marriage partners and considers long-term childless marriages equal to others.
Further, lesbian couples often get pregnant (with outside help, admittedly, but many heterosexual couples get outside help as well) and their families could benefit as well from the legal framework of marriage.
Having a mom and a dad is better for children than having two moms or two dads.
Making that case won't be easy. Studies show little developmental or social difference between children raised by heterosexual parents and children raised by homosexual parents. In fact, a 2010 study in the journal Pediatrics found that children of lesbians scored better in such areas as self esteem, behavior and academic performance than children of straight parents.
Second, even if we concede for the sake of discussion that a stable, loving opposite-gender couple is the gold standard for parenting, it's otherwise offensive to deny those who fall short of the gold standard the right to marry.
I think it is safe to say that having two parents that are drug-free, gainfully employed, debt-free, and certifiably sane is better for children than having even one parent lacking one or more of these virtues, but none of these attributes has ever been used as a legal or moral standard for those who should have the right to marry and/or bear children.
Legalizing same-sex marriage will put us on the slippery slope toward legalizing polygamy.
The practical and philosophical arguments both for and against multiple-partner marriages are largely distinct from the arguments both for and against marriage equality. Historians find that it destabilizes a society when some men take many wives and leave large numbers of other men without the opportunity to mate. Despite this finding by historians, polygamy is evident in multiple places in the Bible, even though you and I probably agree that it should not be legalized.
Same-sex marriage does not fundamentally alter the basic idea of two people agreeing to unite for life and taking on the responsibilities and privileges of that agreement.
Proposals to legalize multiple-partner marriages, should they ever seriously arise in the legislatures and the courts, would be considered separately from laws regarding single-partner marriages, just as the law now considers alcohol separately from crack cocaine, and hasn't slid helplessly down the slope to legalize them both.
Same-sex marriage trivializes and therefore weakens the institution of heterosexual marriage.
This argument almost seems irrelevant now that we have seen state after state allow same-sex couples to marry with no documented repercussions to straight marriage or conventional families.
Philosophically, the fervor with which same-sex couples demand to be granted the dignity and respect of legal marriage underscores the value of marriage and ought to remind straight couples not to take it lightly or for granted.
The ease and frivolity with which opposite-gender couples are allowed to marry and also divorce in this country are the REAL threats to the institution of heterosexual marriage. Allowing for more loving couples to marry and serve as a beacon of hope for those heterosexuals and homosexuals who have yet to find their soulmate or life partner would indeed strengthen the institution of marriage rather than weaken it.
Homosexual behavior is immoral and ought not be encouraged.
What is the meaning of immoral? The definition of moral is “concerned with the principles of right and wrong behavior and the goodness or badness of human character.” Immoral is understandably the opposite of this. Who are we to judge what is right and wrong behavior between two consenting adults?
"If a man lies with a male as he lies with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination. They shall surely be put to death. Their blood shall be upon them." (Leviticus 20:13)
Leviticus 20:13 seems to be the crutch that is leaned on by opponents to same-sex marriage as the standard bearer for what is moral and immoral. But the Bible is ignored by most of modern American society when it comes to the following pretty clear biblical laws:
"For everyone who curses his father or his mother shall surely be put to death. He has cursed his father or his mother. His blood shall be upon him." (Leviticus 20:9)
It is a crime in the United States to kill your kid because he or she mouths off to you.
"If a man lies with a woman during her sickness and uncovers her nakedness, he has discovered her flow, and she has uncovered the flow of her blood. Both of them shall be cut off from her people." (Leviticus 20:18)
No one is prosecuted or excommunicated in the United States over having sex during menstruation, and this is probably because what happens in the bedroom is largely considered to be private and none of anyone’s business.
"Your male and female slaves are to come from the nations around you; from them you may buy slaves. You may also buy some of the temporary residents living among you and members of their clans born in your country, and they will become your property." (Leviticus 25:44-45)
This part of the Bible was largely responsible for the “moral” justification for slavery in America until (and, unfortunately, for many years after) the Emancipation Proclamation in the 1860s. It’s amazing how time heals all “moral” arguments. Can’t we just skip all the decades of bridging understanding between same-sex marriage opponents and proponents and just cut to the chase with regard to allowing for equal rights for all? Hopefully it won’t take another civil war for America to work out its differences on this one before it’s all over.
"Do not cut the hair at the sides of your head or clip off the edges of your beard." (Leviticus 19:27)
This reference to shaving and trimming sideburns has certainly been disregarded for all of the modern era. It would be quite the job killer for all the barber shops in America (including the ones in Walmarts) to have to close up shop because some nutjob decides to pick up this “moral” issue and run with it in order to get elected to public office in Minnesota or something. Who is the “moral” authority that gets to pick and choose which parts of Leviticus are relevant? And if some are no longer relevant to society and largely disregarded by American society and even Christians in general, why not bite the bullet and allow same-sex marriage to be included on that list?
"At the end of every seven years you must cancel debts." (Deuteronomy 15:1)
This Bible verse can’t even be understood or comprehended in the current context of American society, which is why it is and should be disregarded. But this verse is no more relevant to modern American society than Leviticus 20:13.
Here are a few more disregarded gems from the Bible:
"If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who does not obey his father and mother and will not listen to them when they discipline him, his father and mother shall take hold of him and bring him to the elders at the gate of the town. They shall say to the elders, 'This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious. He will not obey us. He is a profligate and a drunkard.' Then all the men of his town shall stone him to death..." (Deuteronomy 21:18-21)
"...do not plant your field with two kinds of seed. Do not wear material woven of two kinds of material." (Leviticus 19:19)
I think you get the picture. I understand and appreciate if your religious tradition does not want to bless same-sex marriage or celebrate it or even like it. There is a fine line between personal morality and judgment in the eyes of the law. There are matters of the heart and of personal conduct that are your business and those that are none of your business.
Homosexual conduct itself has been legal since the U.S. Supreme Court struck down anti-sodomy laws in 2003. And if anything, encouraging same-sex couples to commit to one another for life will decrease promiscuous behavior among gay people, should that be of particular concern.
It was not your decision for your franchisor, Chick-fil-A, to come out in opposition to marriage equality. But please don’t celebrate or endorse it without recognizing how deeply and how irreparably it harms and affects the lives of real people that are actually in your life. I’m sure there are many more gay people in your life than just me. You may not even realize it. They might not even realize it (yet). Would you deny these rights to your own children or a beloved family member if they ever came to you one day with a revelation that they are gay?
This is way more than just politics that same-sex marriage opponents are expounding their views on so publicly and so virulently. You and I can agree or disagree on tax policy, economic policy, states rights, military funding, education funding, healthcare mandates, or hundreds of other issues. Those are political discussions and both sides of each argument are partially right. What will prevail in most cases is some legislative compromise that throws each side a bone.
This is NOT the case with regard to same-sex marriage. Denying me and Peter any of the 1,400 federal rights and privileges that any two opposite-gender people can enjoy for the cost of a $60 marriage license is wrong. It is unfair. It makes me effectively a second-class citizen despite contributing to society just as much or as little as you do. If you disagree that I should be denied these rights and that no one should be relegated to second-class citizen status just for loving someone who is of the same gender, then please consider expressing your support for marriage equality, much like Anthony Piccola is doing in Nashua, New Hampshire.
http://www.boston.com/news/local/new...ay_pride_fest/
I hope you can take my comments to heart and reconsider any overt or covert endorsement or support for the positions that have been made clear by your franchisor and also many of your customers and friends. I wish nothing but the best for you, your beautiful family, and your business. I hope you feel the same about me.
Cordially, Sincerely, and Fraternally,
Dave
http://www.gao.gov/archive/1997/og97016.pdf
www.gao.gov
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